Annual Conference 2017

01.06.2017 - 2017-06-03

The End Of the Liberal Order? Central, East, and Southeast European Populism in Comparative Perspective

The Fourth Annual Conference of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies is dedicated to populism in Central, East and Southeast Europe. Internationally renowned scholars, representing different disciplines and fields of study, will present and discuss comparatively their respective research on backgrounds, forms and strategies of populism in history and the present. The conference is organized in cooperation with the University College London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies and will take place in Regensburg on June 1-3, 2017.

This year’s conference will put populism in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe in perspective: it will draw comparisons with other regions of the word and elucidate the contexts of populist politics. The four panels of this interdisciplinary conference will engage with the languages of populism; the typologies of populist politics; the historical trajectories of populism in the region; and populist subjectivities. In a special round-table, journalists reporting from the region will discuss the causes and likely consequences of populist politics.

Keynote speakers are: the author and journalist John B. Judis (Washington), the media scholar Prof. Dr. Michał Krzyżanowski (Örebro) as well as the Slavist and director of the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Prof. Jan Kubik (London).

Friday night a public debate in German language with renowned journalists will explore populism and its impact on Central, East and Southeast Europe: Andreas Ernst (Belgrad / Zurich), Boris Schumatsky (Berlin) and Reinhold Vetter (Warsaw / Berlin); the session is chaired by Marie-Janine Calic (Munich).

The conference language is English. Only the journalist round table on Friday evening will be in German.

Concept

The dream of a united Europe seems to be on the ropes. Anti-EU platforms are on the rise, producing the first major faits accomplis such as Brexit.

Hungary and Poland are governed by parties that portray Brussels as a second Moscow and oppose the European federalist ideal. Arguably, the most shocking event in this development is the election of a right-wing populist as President of the United States. The big-tent parties in Europe, which have so far maintained the post-war liberal order, have found no effective antidote to the wave of populism. In the post-socialist countries, the democratic achievements since 1989 seem under threat by policies that draw a clear line between “us” and “them”, foster hatred and offer easy solutions to complex problems. However, populism also indicates wide-spread frustration about inequality and alienation under the current capitalist system.

This year’s conference of the Graduate School, organized jointly with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES, UCL) will put populism in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe in perspective: it will draw comparisons with other regions of the world and elucidate the contexts of populist politics. The four panels of this interdisciplinary conference will engage with the languages of populism; the typologies of populist politics; the historical trajectories of populism in the region; and populist subjectivities. In a public roundtable, journalists reporting from the region will discuss the causes and likely consequences of populist politics (in German). The keynote speakers are: John B. Judis, Michał Krzyzanowski, Jan Kubik and Gwendolyn Sasse.

Program

Thursday, June 1

18 Uhr

OpeningUlf Brunnbauer (Regensburg) and Martin Schulze Wessel (Munich)

18:30-20:00

Keynote: John B. Judis (Washington)The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics